Kingdom Of My Nostalgic Heart

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When Kingdom Hearts III was announced, yet again, for release I was beyond uninterested. I was downright bored of the franchise. I was eagerly awaiting KH3 since 2007. The lack of information on the new title and the constant releases of games based on only one tiny part of the main story made me lose complete interest over the last decade. I had barely enough interest in Roxas as a character in II, but pushing all of these single titles? I barely played any. I attempted Chain of Memories, never finished it. I have 358/2 Days. I don’t even think I played an hour of it. I eventually got the collection of 1.5 Final Mix on the PS3, and barely touched it.

Yet I find myself searching for the Kingdom Hearts series on the PSN now. Interested in the nostalgia of the game. I LOVED the game play. Just enough action based, just enough RPG elements. Throw in Disney AND Final Fantasy, it was a match made in heaven.

Is this what Square is banking on? The nostalgia of the series to produce momentum for a title that was on the development back burner for a decade?

Kingdom Hearts is no Final Fantasy VII in the nostalgia department. You can’t even mention a flaw in VII on the PSX without severe nerd rage in the community. The popularity of Kingdom Hearts seemed to have waned quite severely. So is there enough interest in the series for Kingdom Hearts III to be received well? To even be as popular as it once was? Or is the series now a dead horse?

For the longest time, for me, it was dead. I understand the time constraints of Nomura working on one project at a time, but the wait was disappointing. FFXV required a lot of attention, and it is difficult to see why FFXV took so much away from other projects. (Don’t get me wrong, I love XV, but it is an unpolished mess.)

Is Kingdom Hearts III going to suffer the same problems as XV? The long development cycle, the changes from original released teasers. Is this still going to be the KH3 from back in the day? Or has it lost something like XV did over the years of development. I don’t have high hopes at the moment.

It is hard for me to get excited for the new title. It seems as though the upcoming release has at least renewed my interest in the old games. Weither that translates to interest in the new game is yet to be seen.